So much fun to see people engaged in learning.
This time it was the undergraduate commerce students’ turn to try out the design thinker simulation. In case this is your first time on this blog Design Thinker:Experience Innovation is a 3.5 hour workshop which is the product of a collaboration between Experience Point (HQ in Toronto) and IDEO, a global innovation and design firm that uses design thinking to create positive impact for business and society. Here is the link:
http://www.experiencepoint.com/sims/DesignThinker
Design Thinker provides meaningful experience with design thinking — you will compete to solve a realistic and complex challenge while engaging with the terms, techniques, and thought patters of successful innovators. from the Experience Point web-site.
Faithful readers of the blog will possibly remember that the MBA students experienced the Design Thinker in their Orientation in late August. In the case of the B.Com d-studio — we decided to utilize the simulation in the middle of the term. The students are in the midst (especially this weekend I imagine because their projects are due on Tuesday) of coming up with a pitch and a press release for a new business model idea for their SUB businesses.
I believe that going through the design thinker process — especially the brainstorming and the design of the pilot experiment — is going to help them in their projects this week.
We are looking forward to this coming Wednesday when we have guest critics coming to review the students’ work. Part of the d-studio’s mandate is to help students learn how to critique constructively — both their own work and that of others. Their next assignment will be to critique another teams work — here is an excerpt from their next assignment:
You will be, as an individual, assigned another team’s transformed business model to constructively critique. In no more than two pages, please reflect on the following questions:
• What is exciting and positive about the transformed business model?
• Develop 3 questions that you would pose to the team where you see potential flaws or possible concerns with their proposal.
• Develop 3 questions that you would pose to the team about the opportunities for growth that may not have been missed.
• Comment on the way the project was communicated – did you think that the pitch was communicated in a manner that would cause the owner/client/investor to respond positively?
• Identify something that you learned from this critiquing process.
Will blog next week on the results of the Business Model project.